


Research of Dr. Coolatta

by rattyknive



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware - Fandom
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Science, M/M, Multi, Non-Explicit Animal Death, Tags to be added, Tommy-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:55:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25716901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rattyknive/pseuds/rattyknive
Summary: Tommy liked to see things in neat little organized rows that were easy to comprehend. If it was all laid out in plain view, then he could see it and process it properly. He did the same with his past, organizing it all into categories. Dates of when important things happened are all fixed points of memories.
Relationships: Benrey/Tommy Coolatta, Benrey/Tommy Coolatta/Gordon Freeman, Tommy Coolatta & The G-Man, Tommy Coolatta/Gordon Freeman
Comments: 18
Kudos: 109





	1. Before Black Mesa

**Author's Note:**

> This is incredibly kin memory indulgent, so enjoy! If you find that any of this matches up with your Tommy, please let me know!! I’m always on the lookout for canon mates and friends. Also, Tommy’s age changes throughout this but I’ll try to keep the timeline as consistent as I can!

* * *

  
Tommy got to pick his surname, and so did a few of the other kids that lived in the big two-story orphanage. Lots of them chose the last names of celebrities- Johanson, Hemsworth, O’Hara, et cetera- but Tommy didn’t like any of those names. Tommy liked the names of fountain drinks. Bubbly carbonation and caffeination, sweet like pure sugar and flavored like fruits but sharper and less organic. Coolatta is a name he picked out when he was 8, being dragged through a Dunkin Donuts by a particularly prickly caretaker who just wanted their daily dose of caffeine. Tommy, fidgety as ever, was tugging on the hand of the caretaker, whose grip was frankly _way_ too tight for his little hand, until they snapped at him and bought him a watermelon coolatta in the futile attempt to get him to stop talking about the texture of his checkered yellow and pale blue bed sheets. “Coolatta” seemed like a word that wasn’t used often, wasn’t said often enough to get mixed up in the pile of other kids’ names, and it seemed like a pretty neat word, so that’s the one that he chose. 

At 13 years of age, he discovered the biological sciences. Anatomy, immunology, molecular genetics; endocrine systems, osteology, hematology; anything and everything was fair game. He spent the two hours he got on the shared house computer either on coolmathgames.com or looking up whatever he could about _science_. Being detail-oriented was one thing, but there’s always a difference between staring at the lines and pores and hairs on your arm for hours until you can’t tell it’s your hand anymore and studying the way bones and skin and blood and muscle and chemicals are formed and interact and break and heal and… he started to slip in some of his other classes, but that didn’t discourage him. No matter how many times the caretakers would scold him for not paying attention to other things, it didn’t really matter so long as he could keep learning about what fascinated him. 

At 14 years old, Tommy got his first service dog. She was a large black labradoodle he named Cola, and he liked to keep his diagnostic and identification papers and cards in the pockets of her vest. He’d never felt so strongly for anything before her, no friend or supposed partner or previous pet (the only things really allowed as a pet in the orphanage were fish, and those were pretty boring if you asked him). 

At 19 years old, a freshman in college and already on his way towards a double major in ecological and genetic biologies alike, Cola died. It was an unfairly bright and sunny spring day, the second week of the two of them being on the college campus together. It felt like a personal slight against him to have such a lovely companion die on such a lovely day, but there was nothing he could do about it but mourn. It was difficult to navigate the crowded halls without the large, furry buffer between him and the bustling crowds. It was hard for him to focus on his classes without the gentle weight of her head in his lap and the soothing stim of his fingers through her fur. It was especially hard for him to have to file for another service dog with Cola’s cremated remains sitting on his dresser, but it was necessary. The guilt didn’t leave him, and neither did her memory, which made it difficult for him to get as attached to the new service dog, a cheerful boxer with a stubby tail. Mug seemed an appropriate name for him, the brown and white fur reminding Tommy of a can of root beer. Not his favorite soda, but not one he would turn his nose up at. 

In his sophomore year of college, Tommy gradually let himself get more open and relaxed with the crowds of people he went to class with. He even made some friends who would invite him to parties every so often, and he would actually attend a few of them. His grades hardly ever slipped, working studiously in his little apartment where he lived off of soda and cheap meals he could get at the grocery store he worked at. He even tried to have a girlfriend for a month before that went as well as one would expect, her dumping him for some other guy and Tommy shrugging it off. He was never really good at getting along with those who weren’t neurodivergent anyways, and he didn’t care much what people thought of him. So long as he could study what he was interested in and keep himself and Mug alive, that’s all that mattered. Maybe even a high-paying job in the field of his choice sometime in the future, as unlikely as it had seemed at the time.

Black Mesa was hiring scientists in New Mexico, and Tommy grew up in and was currently residing in the sunny state California. It wasn’t that far, really, but the existence of the government-owned facility wasn’t even on Tommy’s mind to begin with. His (unknown, for now) father, however, _was_ doing work in Black Mesa— experiments on portals (stolen from a certain other ~~aperture~~ science facility) to the farthest they could reach in the current state of their technology. A supposedly uninhabited little planet they had named ‘Xen’ was where the portals had settled, and testing began anew. The previous planet they’d studied had run out of live specimens, the remainder locked up tight in the deepest basements of Black Mesa. This experiment had been ongoing for quite some time, some living creatures taken from Xen to be experimented on. Only a small handful were sentient, two or three capable of speech when taught the proper language(s), but Tommy wasn’t involved with any of that. At least, not yet.

His junior year was upon him, as were his partying days. His 21st birthday in April allowed for the legal consumption of alcohol, and who was he not to fall in line with the college stereotypes? And alcohol wasn’t that bad when mixed with carbonated drinks, he thought, dizzy and nowhere near level-headed as he tried to line up another shot for beer pong, eyes squinted and tongue poked out between his lips in concentration. He’d left Mug at home so that he wouldn’t have to worry about anything getting in his fur or losing the dog at the party, and he was lucky enough to have a kind friend offer to drive him home once the party was over. It was his first experience with a big crowd (& alcohol) that didn’t make him have a meltdown, so he considered this social experiment a complete success. He quite liked partying, too, the music and the laughter and the fun little games people made up allowed it to quickly become one of his favorite things to do. Tommy had no idea what a ‘frat star’ was, but that’s what people called him whenever he showed up at the next party and lived it up with his friend group (which was quickly tripling in size). He still did his work as studiously as he could, not allowing himself to visit a party if he hadn’t finished his assignments first, but he did set up a little wire trash bin in the corner of his room so that he could practice tossing crushed cans. 

Getting a major in more than one field takes more time than just four years if someone wants to have a proper doctorate. Tommy’s first and second senior years were full of work and partying, working a few jobs when he could and collecting soda tabs to make into a sort-of chainmail shirt (it was a work in progress). Studying in specific biological fields allowed him specific job opportunities that he would get emails and letters about, but no offer caught his eye as much as the dark grey letter from Black Mesa. 

A chilly October evening had him curled up on the beat up old pull out couch that doubled as his bed, a ratty pink blanket pulled over his shoulders and laid across the sleeping form of Mug beside him, softly snoring away. The tv was on, just static noise to keep him focused on the task at hand- shuffling through bills and letters that had come in the mail the night before. Sundays are his resting days where he just stays in his apartment with his dog and fills out papers he’d forgotten and bills that needed to be paid. Water bill, electrical bill, letter from some sophomore, phone bill, grey envelope, another love letter… the grey envelope had a strange texture to it- smoother than most paper and almost translucent as he tilted it back and forth under the lamp to his left. An expensive-looking wax seal was pressed into the paper, which Tommy carefully peeled off and decided to keep. As he ran his thumb over the design, he used his other hand to maneuver the letter out of the envelope and flick the strange grey paper onto the floor. The letter was as follows:

_October 21, 1994_

_Mr. G_ **_[REDACTED]_ **

_Manager of Human Resources_

_Black Mesa_

**_[REDACTED]_ **

**_[REDACTED]_ ** _, NM,_ **_[REDACTED]_ **

_To Mr. Thomas “Tommy” Coolatta,_

_It is with great enthusiasm that we reach out to you in the hopes that you will accept a position at Black Mesa as a top scientist in the study of synthetic biology and molecular genetics. An OSHA-complaint regulations & rules packet will be sent to your residence upon your acceptance. _

_As you are graduating from your university on May 26th, 1995, we wish to offer you this position well in advance so that you have time to properly consider this option in your career path._

_Your starting salary will be set at $500,000 with the full range of benefits granted to government employees. If you accept this position, employee orientation will begin June 2nd, 1995 at 8:30 am after the complete medical and drug exam [to be completed one month prior] and a black sedan will escort you onto the premises. Additionally, you are to complete all employment and insurance forms after employee orientation._

_Thank you for your cooperation and compliance during this process. We look forward to working with you and other top scientists around the world here at Black Mesa._

_Cordially,_

_Mr. G_ **_[REDACTED]_ **

As suspicious as this letter may have seemed, a government mandated letter addressed specifically to Tommy offering him a job that he wants with _top scientists around the world_ and incredibly good pay, it was hard to refuse such an offer. They even knew his date of graduation and were kind enough to give him a date and time for orientation, which would nicely fit into his schedule. He knew about OSHA codes and violations, surprised to see that the letter said that he would get a rules and regulations packet once he accepted the job. Pulling the blanket further over his shoulders, he hums contentedly as he stands up to tack the letter up on the ‘important things’ board he hung by his door so he could remember things that weren’t schoolwork or parties. Black Mesa May be just the place he was looking to work, and if he didn’t want to work there, he’d politely decline and look for somewhere else to work at. Though a $500k salary would be incredibly hard to beat, especially coming from a government facility. 

By the time graduation rolled around, Mug had since been assigned to a new owner, Tommy got his degree(s) and doctorate, and he had made up his mind about Black Mesa, sending back a cheerfully tacky acceptance letter, sealed with a scratch and sniff sticker and a smiley face next to his name. He has no idea who the “Mr. G” man is, but he seems friendly and professional enough to warrant a smiley face. Tommy counts the days and even sets two alarms for the day he’s to go to orientation at Black Mesa, having taken a rocky, stressful flight to New Mexico and checked into a hotel as instructed by a second letter that burst into flames after he had finished reading it. He’s glad he has good memory regarding dates, otherwise he may have missed the exact time the sedan was supposed to pull up to the hotel. Its windows were tinted so dark that it must have been at least a little illegal, but Tommy didn’t say anything as he climbed into the back seat. No one else was in the car except for the driver- a greying man in a suit who wouldn’t turn to meet Tommy’s eyes or even acknowledge him. Tommy couldn’t see his eyes in the rear view mirror, either, the glare from the sun streaking across the glass. It was a couple hours driving out to the facility, and a couple more hours passed as Tommy fidgeted through orientation. Excited as he was, crowds in certain settings were either great or incredibly draining, especially without a service dog, and this was an instance in which he needed to get out of there and stretch his legs, wandering down the halls and studiously reading through the several thousand-page OSHA regulation handbook he’d been given. 

Black Mesa seemed to have a few hundred levels to it, each one further and further underground requiring higher and higher levels of security to access them. All the more reason to work hard and gain promotions until he could go wherever he wished and study anything that was thrown his way, deadly or otherwise. He thought about committing the OSHA guidelines to memory, re-reading the part about… well, he’d just have to figure out what bull-squids were eventually.


	2. The Perfect Dog Project

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A 25 year old Tommy is so tired of having to keep changing service dogs, wrung out from deaths of previous dogs. The emotional turmoil is too much for him to handle every time, and so he sets his mind on creating the perfect dog. It takes… a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for (implied) repeated animal death. No animal experimentation is in this bc it makes me very sad but lots of prototype Sunkists don’t make it :(

* * *

  
Dogs are man's best friend. That is an indisputable fact of life, as is the fact that Tommy doesn’t like to go anywhere without a service dog with him. He did all the correct paperwork so that Mug could go on to a different person given the fact that he never asked or was told about anything regarding service dogs in Black Mesa, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t need one with him. Paying for a service dog is a lot for someone who’s so fresh out of college, pocket change and money for food all he has until his first paycheck, so he gets to thinking about the resources and information available to him at Black Mesa. 

If he has the proper doctorates and materials and whatnot, couldn’t he just… _make_ a dog for himself? Of course, he would have to learn about how to train dogs, but the fact remains. Dogs technically aren’t that far off from people in terms of chemicals and muscle and bone, so if his theories on the lower levels of Black Mesa are correct, then maybe he could use samples of human muscle and bone and chemicals as well as whatever other creatures that may be held at Black Mesa to make a dog.

But what breed? Shepherd dogs are lovely, of course, but they do shed a lot and require a lot of upkeep and maintenance. It can’t be a small dog, that’s for sure. Not only because small dogs aren’t great at crowd control, but also because it would be very, very hard to synthesize a small dog based off of the bones of supposedly human clones, prototypes, and strange alien creatures. A doberman would be good, but then again, they need a lot of exercise and Black Mesa isn’t exactly the best place to go running with a dog. Tommy’s favorite breed of dog has always been golden retrievers, though, and it’s hard to resist falling back on what’s familiar. 

Several months of planning and sample-gathering went into the Perfect Dog project. Ordering authentic golden retriever blood, hair, and bone samples were also required (specifically from humane sources, Tommy would never forgive himself if he allowed something to get hurt just because he wanted something), as well as claw samples from whatever creatures in Black Mesa he could manage without getting injured. Teeth were also acquired, though none of them looked particularly doglike. Either way, Tommy never specified to himself that the Perfect Dog had to be 100% dog, so he had no problems with them being a mixed breed. 

Spinning idly around in his wheeled chair at his desk and sipping from his seventeenth can of Dr. Pepper that day, Tommy waits for fifty-two prototype dog samples to incubate. It’s the very first trial run of his project on a cold April night, having waited the appropriate amount of time for his project request to go through and be properly met and approved by his supervisors which he hasn’t actually met yet. He wonders why that is and takes another sip from his now empty can. Sighing to himself about the very real possibility that this project may turn out to be a complete and utter failure but still steeling himself against the thought of it, he crushes the can against his forehead and tosses it into the wire basket across his room like he did back in his cramped little dorm. Now that he lives in Black Mesa as a full time employee, he has his bed in a secret compartment in his office with a shelf above it for his favorite books and manuals and fidget toys. 

A clock beeps on his desk to alert him to the time- 11:00 pm. An hour to midnight, and he’s still stimming with his spinny chair and cracking open his eighteenth can of soda. He uses his free hand to sign some half-heartedly scolding words to himself before standing up and shaking his head to clear his thoughts. Like an etch-a-sketch being shaken to rid itself of a picture drawn on it, he thinks, and double- and triple-checks that he has the keys to his office and his lab with him. Locking his office door behind him, he steps out into the brightly-lit hallway and frowns, hating how sharp the fluorescent lights feel, lifting a hand up to shade his eyes as he walks to the elevator.

He isn’t authorized to go down to the 40th levels yet, but levels 0-39 are free reign for him to wander and collect samples from. The first 10 levels are for those with basic clearance- those who are hired to study nuclear things, radiation from certain parts of the surface, and to guard against those who might wish to sneak into the underground government facility. The 20th levels are for scientists hired to make chemicals and weapons in order to sell them to other governments during times of crisis and war. The 30th levels require a strict background check as well as several drug tests that Tommy passed. These are the ones that hold human test subjects such as prototypes of the “perfect scientist” project and the cloning facilities as well as a separate section that he swipes a keycard to get into- the creature testing chambers. 

Tommy had theorized about extraterrestrial life before, but here lies full, tangible proof. Headcrabs floating alive in green liquids, bullsquids and vortigaunts held behind bulletproof glass for later study and/or dissection, whatever other creatures farther and farther back in the red-lit back labs. The 40th floor is supposedly where they need the most security, holding the creatures capable of the most destruction as well as sentience and speech. The paperwork required to enter those levels is still being processed for Tommy, and thus the required keycard has not yet been delivered to him. Oh, well, at least he has all of these creatures to choose samples from. 

His own experiment, partially spurred on by the “perfect scientist” project, lies in a lab on the 37th floor. Fifty-two dog prototypes incubating in tubes, chemicals and blood and bones and brains and muscle, fifty-two creatures of his own design. It’s quite the intimidating project, and he doesn’t plan on giving up. He’s never been the type of person to do so, and he doesn’t anticipate that changing any time soon.

Two years pass. Tommy is nearing his 27th birthday, and he is only getting closer and closer to the perfect dog. Some of the original samples could hardly even be called doglike, which called for some major adjustments in certain creature additives. Most of them didn’t even make it out of the tubes in the beginning, but now he has a lovely little litter of three possible pups. He avoids naming any of the pups for fear of getting too attached to any that may not make it, but the runt of the litter seems a lot more lively than her siblings despite being the smallest and least statistically likely to survive. They all look the most doglike out of any of his other prototypes (thank god, he thinks, he’ll never get used to trying to hold off a dog that looks more reptile than canine), which in and of itself is a huge success. Their numbers are all jotted down- 1145, 1146, 1149- and the specific formula he had used for that batch is saved for future usage.

His paperwork authorizing his descent into the 40-49th chambers was _finally_ authorized, meaning that if this litter is unsuccessful, he has full permission to collect samples from the other creatures if he dares to get close enough to do so. He yawns, checking his watch as the puppies clamber over each other in his lap. It’s almost 8 am, which doesn’t come as a surprise. He’s been waiting for the puppies to tire themselves out since they woke him up yipping and howling at 5, and he finally puts them back in their play pen as he stands up and brushes the fur- _fur, finally, these are_ **_dogs_ **\- off of his pants and stands up to face the day.

Walking over to the coffee maker sitting on his desk that he had been kindly gifted, he removes a fresh cup of coffee from the machine and pours half of a redbull into the mix, stirring in two sugar packets with a green Black Mesa patented silly straw and going about his day. No one really bothers to talk to him, which he doesn’t particularly mind, so he just wanders down into the elevator next to a tall security guard and two other scientists that he’s seen in the break room before. One of them works on the 20th floor, he believes, but he still isn’t sure. He doesn’t know if he will ever be sure of something about someone else while working at Black Mesa.

Once he finally arrives down at the entrance to the 40th floor, the elevator is empty save for him. The guard got off to accompany one of the scientists around, and the other one seemed to have just vanished. It happens on occasion, so Tommy doesn’t have anything to worry about. He strides down the hallway to the entrance to the 40th floor labs, whistling to himself as he swirls his straw around in his half-empty mug, and smiles politely at the two security guards posted in front of the iron-wrought doors.

“Good morning!” He says, chipper as ever. One of the guards- significantly shorter than both Tommy and the other guard, he notes- looks up at Tommy with a look of… well, it’s hard to say. It could very well have been boredom, but it looked more like mildly apathetic confusion. “I just need to- if you’ll excuse me, please,” Tommy pipes up again, waving his keycard in his other hand to show them that yes, he does have the proper clearance and no, he isn’t lost, “I just need to- to get past you. Thank you.”

“Do you have your- your ID, sir?” Tommy blinks in surprise when the shorter guard steps in front of him, barring his path as Tommy had stepped forward. The other security guard doesn’t move or say anything, and Tommy starts to become a bit apprehensive. “I do, yeah. Is- what’s wrong? Was there a, an accident?” 

“Nooo…? I just, I’m checking. To see if you’ve got the right, uhh, clearance, bro.”

“‘Bro’? My name is- I’m Tommy. Dr. Coolatta, 37th floor. I’m- I did the papers. Please let me through.”

“...Yeah, okay. I’m Benrey. Go on- uhh, go on through, man.”

Tommy does his best not to be irritated, giving the guard- Benrey, he thinks with an internal sigh, they must be new on the job- a tense smile before he swipes his key card and goes into the labs. Benrey noticeably tenses when the doors open, which Tommy notes and decides to file away for later experimentation. It’s always fun to try his hand at making a new friend- especially if said friend is posted outside of the lavs that hold so much stange and new information that Tommy hasn’t had any access to before now. It’s exciting, to say the least. And the very first step to a very long journey. 


	3. What is a ‘Benrey’?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy finally gets access to the deeper parts of Black Mesa, where he meets a certain off-putting security guard. Benjamin Henrey- or, Benrey- doesn’t seem to be particularly… human. But then again, neither does Tommy, and he’s fairly certain that he’s at least human-passing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be more sweet voice and science related things since this one is Benrey backstory heavy and VERY self-indulgent in terms of defining what Benrey’s backstory pre-Black Mesa is.

April 7th, 4:32 pm, 1997. Roughly a month before Tommy’s 27th birthday, and frankly an almost uncomfortable number of 7’s. That’s the date and time that Tommy Coolatta met Mr. Benjamin Henrey on the entrance to the 40th floors of Black Mesa. His own lab on the 37th floor houses the two remaining pups from his own personal experiment, and he hopes that at least  _ one  _ survives. The security guard seems to be more curious than anything, more often than not found mumbling to himself about one thing or another when Tommy passes him. Tommy has seen almost every other guard change stations at various lab entrances except for Benrey, who he’d started to look into despite himself.

Requesting access to the security guard employment list raised eyebrows, but most things are easily brushed off when you’re as accomplished of a scientist as Tommy is. He isn’t making nearly as many friends in Black Mesa as he did in college, but that doesn’t really matter to him (or, at least, he tells himself that it doesn’t bother him). The only thing he got from searching “Benrey” into the database was a “Benjamin Henrey” who didn’t even have a proper photo like all the other guards did. Every other guard had a photo of them next to their name, usually buzz-cut, uptight, and stiff-postured. Benrey didn’t have a photo, a date of birth, or any discernible information past several  **REDACTED** pieces that Tommy frowned at. Who  _ was _ Benrey, and where did he come from?

Every few weeks Tommy would go down and politely greet him and the other security guard on duty at the time, and Benrey would mumble some version of hello and scuff his left shoe against the linoleum floor. One time, Tommy brought the last remaining pup- the little runt he’d hoped would survive that long, thank goodness that she did- down to the 40th floor labs with him to run some tests. Benrey, upon seeing the dog, visibly bristled and gripped the handle of the firearm strapped to his thigh. “This is- don’t worry, she doesn’t bite,” Tommy says quickly, pulling the little golden retriever puppy against his chest as she yawns, “Yet, I mean, she is just a- just a little puppy, after all. Her teeth are still growing in!” Benrey didn’t seem at all put at ease by Tommy’s words, his back pressed up against the wall with his teeth bared, and- ooh, those were  _ not even kind-of human, _ Tommy noted to himself. He didn’t know that Black Mesa hired non-human guards- but that would explain the lack of information on him if he were indeed a non-human entity.

“Sorry, bro, I gotta… gotta follow you in, man, make sure that  _ that  _ doesn’t really bite. Gotta, uh, be sure. And all. You know how it is. Protocol,” Benrey goes on a little bit more, but Tommy isn’t really listening as he swipes his keycard and steps into the red-lit lab. “Okay!” is all he says in reply, strolling through the labs to the testing facility with Benrey trailing behind like a scared dog. He seemed more scared than the puppy was, curled up against Tommy’s chest and snoozing away. He was having a little bit of difficulty keeping himself from naming her, but she’d proven to be more resilient than the other members of her litter, so he shouldn’t have any other concerns unless the tests he was about to run showed any suspicious signs of decay or tissue/nerve damage. 

Benrey stood outside of the test chamber and watched through the glass as Tommy gently set the dog down on the examination table and went about carefully doing routine examinations and check-ups on her. Benrey had never seen a dog before- unless peeper puppies counted, but he doubted that. They weren’t Earth-made dogs like this one was. It was a strange, furry little creature with a tail half the size of its little body- fragile and  _ so, so small.  _ Humming softly to himself as he watched, Benrey fidgeted with the gloves over his hands to conceal the claws he had yet to learn to control. Going from being viciously tested on day after day to hiding in plain sight as human-ly as possible certainly was a big jump to make, and he missed being able to freely have his tail dragging along behind him. 

Tommy eventually gets used to seeing Benrey around more often now that he’s sure that this dog is meant to stay- even going as far as to give her a yellow sunflower-patterned collar with his name and number on the back of the tag and ‘Sunkist’ on the front. It’ll certainly take her a while to be a fully fledged service dog, but he has plenty of time. He did succeed in making the perfect, immortal dog after all. Watching Benrey slowly get more and more used to seeing him and Sunkist down in the labs is certainly a fun experience, and once Tommy is sure that they know each other moderately well enough, he invites Benrey into his office room to play some games on the playstation that he had gotten as a parting gift from an old college friend.

During one particularly relaxed gaming session late after everyone else had clocked out, Tommy and Benrey were playing Kirby together with Sunkist laid between the two of them. They were both nestled together in a nest of pillows and blankets strewn across the floor for maximum gaming coziness. Various snacks were scattered around them- a forgotten, half empty bowl of snack mix, several empty soda cans crushed and tossed in the general vicinity of the wire trash basket in the corner of the room, and the screen being the only remaining light in the room to illuminate the pair. “Benrey,” Tommy asks tentatively as they open yet another treasure chest, “where are you from? I’ve- I tried to, to look it up, but I didn’t find anything.” Benrey stiffens next to him suddenly enough for Tommy to pause the game and turn to him, half an apology already on the tip of his tongue before Benrey speaks up. “Got snatched from home when I was real little. Don’t, uh, don’t remember much. But it sucked. Not epic, real cringe of Black Mesa if you ask me.” The rest of the night, Tommy got to hear about the raid on Xen and how Benrey came to live in Black Mesa, making a mental note to himself to write all of this down for later, less emotional scientific reflection.

Benrey was 4 years old when the Black Mesa raid on Xen took place. 4 years in Earth standard time, which meant he was still a child. Creatures like him were constantly shifting in form, content to amble about, hunt, and sing as they went about their lives. Cannibalism was no stranger to their species, certain instances of territorial disputes ending in the visceral tearing of flesh and crunch of bone until one side came out victorious. An average lifespan of Benrey’s species was about four hundred years before the involvement of Black Mesa, after which it dwindled down to about thirty. Countless creatures were slaughtered by the hands of the scientists and hired soldiers once the raid began, smoked out of their dwellings and burned alive or torn to pieces by strange and terrifying machines. Scientists attempted to salvage one type of each form of creature, but try as they might, not a single one of Benrey’s species went down without a guttural snarl and vivid bursts of coalescing sweet voice, gurgling shrieks as they tore out their own throats to prevent capture. 

Benrey was no stranger to violence or viscera, but he was a child. Hiding with his elder sibling in the clutch of eggs in his parents’ nest, he cowered at the sound of gunfire, livid singing and screeching, and only curled tighter in on himself when he heard something near the nest. When a clutch of eggs is to hatch, the largest and smallest hatch first to protect the nest and ward off any that may try to take or eat any of their siblings. Benrey, as the smaller and younger creature, was more instinctually inclined to cower and hide than fight, leaving his sibling to snarl and bristle at the invading soldiers. His sibling was shot the moment they tried to jump at a soldier, gunfire tearing through their fragile exoskeleton, still not fully formed. Benrey and five eggs were picked up and taken away for experimentation. As the scientists could not accurately replicate the conditions required for the eggs to hatch, Benrey became their last remaining subject of a species they would prefer didn’t go extinct just yet.

The days, months, years of captivity all blurred together as scientists poked and prodded at him, contained and heavily sedated in a tube filled with a strange, thick green substance that made him feel like he was choking. By the time he was supposed to be tripling in size due to his species’ form of puberty, the scientists had found a way to transfuse experimental human DNA into him. He didn’t go a day without tubes sticking out of his body, down his maw and past his rows of jagged teeth. Forcibly changing the form of a creature was easy to the scientists now that they’d had plenty of time to study Benrey’s DNA and chemical composition. Benrey was becoming more and more aware of his situation the older he got, eventually able to reach out and claw at the glass holding him captive as something resembling arms formed in his ‘teen’ years. Several grotesque protrusions formed, curling protectively over himself when under the scrutinizing gaze of those studying him. 

Benrey’s 20th year of capture was upon him. Learning a language is hard if all you ever hear is the scientific speech of those you resent more than anything and the occasional angered yelling of someone who clearly didn’t approve of Benrey’s captivity- or at least the part about keeping him in a tube. That scientist’s yelling was apparently reason enough for them to let him out one chilly January morning, the green slime filling the tube slowly draining and allowing Benrey his first breath of (somewhat) clean air since the raid. He coughed and coughed and coughed, someone’s hand warm and comforting against his back as they yelled at the scientists in the room about the ‘level of viscosity causing semi-permanent damage to the throat and vocal cords,’ but Benrey couldn’t care less about any of that. He clasped several ‘hands’ over his skull in the poor attempt to block out the noise, suddenly overwhelming after so long of being in such a quiet place.

“They’re a  _ kid  _ being kept in a _ motherFUCKING TUBE,” _ the voice roared, and Benrey’s very first burst of untampered sweet voice burst forth from his secondary pair of vocal cords, silencing every scientist in the room. Deep, angry reds blending into dark grey orbs floating up to the ceiling spewed from between his clenched teeth, a high, keening sound ripped from his throat as he sings. “ _ Hhhhhurtsss,” _ he rasped as the strange person with the warm hands stepped away to give him space as he curled up on the floor. By the time that he had pulled himself together enough to open his eyes, several of them still squinting in pain at the harsh fluorescent lights in the lab, he focused in on the scientist standing closest to him.

“Get your sorry ass up, I’m gonna help you stay the fuck out of that tube,” they said, offering out their hand for him to take. Benrey blinks, slowly trying to reason out what they mean. Reaching out one of the clawed arms curled around his body out to the scientist, he curls his fingers around their thinner ones. Pulling Benrey to his ‘feet,’ the scientist grins at him, teeth almost sharp enough to rival Benrey’s, their tone warm and sharp. “There. Fucking finally, I was getting sick of seeing someone else go through that bullshit. Come on, let’s get you some decent fucking clothes and see if I can’t get you to stick to one form.”

* * *

  
“I haven’t met that scientist,” Tommy interrupts, too curious to hold back on his commentary any longer. “What did they- what were they wearing? Did they have a name tag?”

“Dude,” Benrey murmurs, half a smile on his face as he sighs and shifts so that he isn’t so uncomfortable sitting on the floor with Sunkist’s head in his lap and his hand in her slowly thickening fur, “don’t interrupt, man. ‘s no wonder you haven’t met ‘em, they’re down on level- level 46. You’ll meet ‘em eventually,” he shrugs, laying his head on Tommy’s shoulder as the taller man pulls a blanket over the both of them, “‘m gonna finish the rest of the story t’morrow. Kay?”

Okay,” he answers easily, sure that he’ll meet the scientist that smells like firewood and sea salt sometime soon. “Good night, Benrey.”

“G’night, Tommy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ty for all the comments!! They mean a lot to me 🥺🥺


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